Star Wars on course to land USA box office record

The Force Awakens pulled in $57 million on Thursday night in the United States, making it the #1 Thursday night opening in box office history.

“Force Awakens” became the biggest domestic opening in North America, as well as the biggest December opening both in North America and globally.

The Walt Disney Co. on Saturday said the film made an estimated $120.5 million from Thursday night previews and opening day Friday.

China, with roughly 30,000 screens – the US has about 40,000 – delivered almost $100 million of the worldwide haul that “Jurassic World” managed in its opening weekend overseas this summer.

That means “The Force Awakens” could also eclipse the global opening weekend record of $316.1 million by “Jurassic World” – along with the dino movie’s worldwide opening record of $524.9 million.

The record for a weekend’s take looks to be the next to fall. Disney bought Lucasfilm for US$4 billion in 2012 and spent more than US$200 million to produce The Force Awakens.

“The Force Awakens” scored the biggest opening weekend in key markets including Britain ($48.9 million, four-day), Germany ($27.3 million), Australia ($18.9 million) and Russian Federation ($12.3 million).

The JJ Abrams-directed seventh instalment in the franchise George Lucas created and launched in 1977 took $27.2 million in Australian cinemas between its first screening to a paying audience at midnight Wednesday to the last sessions beginning before midnight on Sunday. He said “Star Wars” profits won’t offset larger troubles Disney faces from shrinking subscribers at the ESPN sports network.

Expected to blast through records all weekend, the Friday numbers are in for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”.

It was a foregone conclusion that Friday’s single-day record, also held by the final Harry Potter film, would also fall given that the Thursday record was beaten by such a wide margin.

Cue the Imperial March, because the new “Star Wars” is power-stepping its way into the record books with dramatic precision.